Council apologise for Robbie concert fiasco

A council leader apologised yesterday after thousands of children were forced to miss school because of a Robbie Williams concert.

The decision to shut 11 schools in Leeds just days after the start of term has infuriated parents and prompted accusations that the star was damaging the education of youngsters.

Some parents were given as little as 24 hours notice that their child's school would either close for the day or shut early due to traffic chaos linked to the huge outdoor pop concert in Roundhay Park yesterday evening.

Around 90,000 people were due to attend the money-spinning event, with the same number expected at a second concert on Saturday.

Critics said the council should never allowed the concert to be held on a weekday and ensured their was little impact on schools in the area. More than 6,000 children will be affected, with three secondary schools shutting for the entire day and five primary schools among those shutting from lunch time.

Yesterday Mark Harris, the leader of Leeds City Council, took the blame for the bungle and made a humiliating public apology.

'Certainly on the schools issue we did not think it through and we should have done,' he told the BBC.

'It was not made clear to the schools early enough that there were going to have to be significant road closures and these schools were going to have to close.

'I am not the sort of politician who would try to give some mealy-mouthed answer to insult the public who can clearly see what has happened.'

Fans started arriving from early yesterday morning and a number of roads in the Roundhay Park area closed for two days. Education Leeds, the local education authority, said the decision to close schools was taken to ensure children's safety in the face of the expected huge crowds and heavy traffic.

However, parents say they were not given enough time to make alternative childcare arrangements.

Russell Fletcher, whose daughter has been told to stay away from Allerton Grange School, said he was furious with the closure.

'It is absolutely despicable,' he said. 'It is a new term; the kids, teachers, everybody is back at school, ready to get into it and they have closed already.'

Another mother, Denetta Copeland, whose two children are pupils at Moor Allerton Hall Primary School, said the closure would cause many knock-on effects for parents.

'It is going to cause an outward spiral, it is affecting schools, which is affecting parents, which is affecting the workforce, which is affecting other people who are now being brought in to do the childcare, or the picking up from school. He is only Robbie Williams, he is not bigger than education.'

An Education Leeds spokesman said:'Some head teachers who felt that there was a large risk that children and young people would not be able to travel home safely or in good time have, in the best interests of the children, reluctantly taken the decision to close their schools.

'We will continue to work closely with the schools involved to try to resolve the concerns of parents and ensure that any disruption to the normal routine of their children is kept to a minimum.'